My first teaching experience I was assigned to give a lecture on
U.S.-Mexican relations in the 1830s and 1840s. I made a joke about John
Wayne going down at the Alamo, and cracked them up. My mentor basically
said, "You did a fine job, but you'll pay for that." Surely not, I
thought. They must watch television and know who John Wayne was....
Still, when the exams came back, some of the students wrote that John
Wayne was commander at the Alama. Even if they knew it was a joke at
the time, they wrote it down in their notes and subsequently studied
it...so it must be right.
Students usually listen with only about half their minds and for only
about a third of the time they're in the classroom. If you try to keep
their attention by doing things or telling them a story or a joke, it
backfires for a lot of them who get distracted from the subject.
It is amazing the kind of bloopers you get....
Best,
Mark L.